A Shadow on the Glass

by Ian Irvine

  Before him were the ruins of many buildings: a corner of a wall here, and there a standing chimney. To his right was a tall keep, to the left the hulk of a tower loomed. The rain must have come less heavily here, for there were still icy drifts in sheltered places. It was late afternoon, the light fading, the sleet turning to snow. Llian was utterly exhausted, saturated and freezing, the cold creeping into the core of him, filling him with lethargy. He sat down for a while in the snow and it did not feel cold any more. Blood was trickling into his eye again, the bandage lost somewhere in the rain. He pressed his hand to the wound and stumbled off toward the tower.

  Adjoining was a hall with part of its roof still standing, but the rain had streamed in through holes of every shape and size, so that it was scarcely more sheltered than outside. The smoke smell was stronger here. As he dragged himself down the hall he spied an anteroom on his right, at the end. A faint glow came from inside, and a welcoming aroma of stew. He reached up to the doorway and saw that a door still swung on brass hinges. Llian brushed the blood from his eye and pushed the door. The hinges whined and the door swung open. A small woman leapt up from beside the fire, feeling at her hip. Her hand came up empty, then she sprang sideways, snatched a knife from the hearth and held it out in front of her.

  “My name’s Llian.” Her eyes widened in disbelief and the knife fell to her side. “I’ve come to save you.” He caught his foot on a broken step, stumbled and crashed to the floor at her feet. His head struck stone and the lights went out.

  PART TWO

  14

  * * *

  THE CELLS OF

  FIZ GORGO

  The guard flung Maigraith into the cell. She skidded across a slimy floor, cracking her knee painfully against a bench of stone. The door crashed closed. She clung to the bench in the darkness, trying to will away the pain and the fear. She was prisoner in Fiz Gorgo, prisoner of Yggur. Karan had fled with the Mirror hours before; she was utterly alone.

  Holding Yggur was the hardest thing that she had ever done. Maigraith still did not understand how she had held him all those hours. With Karan’s link supporting her it had just been bearable; without, it had nearly broken her. But the greater the power used, the worse the aftersickness. The pain in her head was so bad now that she wanted to shriek, to batter her head against the stone until something broke. It felt as though crystals as long and sharp as needles were growing behind her eyes, needle balls spreading out from each of those points, impaling, interlocking.

  All at once she felt dizzy. Then her head whirled violently, the needles behind her eyes grew as hot as candle flames, her stomach roiled and she slipped forward underneath the bench and retched, over and over again, into the dank moldy space until her throat burned and she could retch no more. The aftersickness had never been this bad before.

  Maigraith roused. She was thirsty, and so cold. They had taken her pack but she still had the water bottle. Her fingers were so weak that just to prise the stopper out made her heart pound, and her shaking hand slopped water down her front. There was enough left for a good draught, and a little remained to wash her face.

  Maigraith measured the bench with her fingers. It was long but narrow, the stone rough on the sides but smooth on top, as if it had been waxed. That was a grim thought-how many years or centuries had other prisoners huddled here, for the grease of their bodies to bring the stone to this silky state? She put the thought away, levered herself onto the bench and sat down. Her eyes could now make out the bare details of the room: four walls, the outer one slightly curved, her bench and a tiny high slit of a window. It was dawn.

  She lay down on the bench, shivering, willing her mind to become blank, the way she had been taught, but she could not. One scene played over and over again—Yggur stooping down, Karan’s pale terrified face, herself trying to help but failing. Then Yggur’s command, and Karan’s choked whisper, “Faelamor.” Then Karan had broken the link and fled.

  Over and again Maigraith saw the agony on Karan’s face. Over and over she saw the potency of Yggur, the fury that bent Karan like a sapling in a tempest. Yet underneath, most curious, the puzzled way he looked at her. Maigraith groped for a meaning, but could not find one.

  Maigraith stared at the dim, stained ceiling of her cell, sick with her failure and fearful for Karan. How badly she had treated her. What could Karan do alone? Perhaps she had already been taken; perhaps she was already dead. She imagined them dragging her, heaving her broken onto a great pile of filth for the vermin to scuttle over… Her mind shied away from the images.

  Maigraith looked back on the long journey from the east, the difficult way through the swamps to Fiz Gorgo, to her last brief meeting with Faelamor.

  “Go alone into Fiz Gorgo,” Faelamor had said. “And tell no one of me. No one!”

  But Faelamor’s secret had been revealed to Yggur, and because of it his armies would soon march on the east. What other disasters would flow from the betrayal? How could she tell Faelamor?

  If only she had not delayed. Why had she stood there staring at the Mirror for so long? It had called to her so powerfully that nothing else mattered. She knew, as soon as she held it in her hands, that it would change her life. Why her? But the Mirror was gone as well.

  The light grew in the room, seeping from a slit near the ceiling. Presently a rectangular patch of sunlight appeared on the opposite wall. It showed a small room with bare stone walls, a stone floor and a thick door of aged wood reinforced with iron. There was nothing else; not even a water jug, toilet bucket or blanket. Everything was damp and covered in mold, save for a patch around the window where the mold was replaced by a green growth.

  Maigraith took off her sodden boots and lay down on the bench again. She was freezing. Her clothes were still damp from the cistern, though that was ten hours ago. She had not eaten for almost a day, nor slept for two. Her head throbbed abominably. She was filled with a sick feeling of failure. Her mission was in tatters. Much worse, Faelamor’s long-kept secret was betrayed. In her mind’s eye she saw the cold, mask-like beauty of Faelamor, the look in her eyes worse than any anger; the look that told Maigraith of her own worthlessness.

  She was right about me—I do not deserve her. If I had set out to ruin all her long-laid plans I could not have hoped to achieve so much, she thought, and abandoned herself to misery.

  The day passed and night fell; still there had been no sign that anyone cared about her existence. Each moment she expected a thump on the door: Yggur coming to interrogate her. Did he prolong the waiting just to torment her? But Yggur was far away, directing the search of the tunnels and, later, along the shores of the estuary. Maigraith could wait.

  Maigraith was unable to sleep. She had hardly slept since leaving Lake Neid, and though exhausted would not sleep now. She paced the cell, four steps across, four steps back, four steps and four and four. When the shivering stopped she lay down again, but her feet were still icy and the cold soon seeped back up her legs. So she had passed the day, and now the evening. Within her was a vast emptiness.

  In the middle of the night, without warning, the door banged open. The man standing there was extremely gaunt, with an angular face and long graying hair—a Whelm. He beckoned. Maigraith sat up slowly, shielding her eyes from the glare.

  “I am Japhit,” he said, in a voice that was like sand rubbing against steel. “Come!”

  Maigraith reached for her boots.

  “You will not need them,” rasped Japhit, gripping her arm just above the elbow. His bony fingers were hard and cold. He led her down many flights of steps and into a large room without windows but brightly lit by lamps on the walls. The room was as cold as hers had been and smelled of damp. There was wood in a large fireplace but the fire was not lit.

  Inside were two more Whelm, a man and a woman, both with sharp faces like the first. In the center of the room three short benches were arranged to form a square open at one end. The woman led Maigraith to the center of the square.

 
“Sit!” she said.

  Maigraith sat down on the cold floor. The three Whelm sat on the benches, staring down at her. The woman was thin and bony like Japhit, with a narrow prominent nose as sharp and curving as the blade of an axe, and long gray hair. All had skin of a pallid gray, akin to the skin of a fish. In spite of the cold the woman wore sandals, the straps criss-crossing up her legs, and Maigraith saw that she had narrow ugly feet, the bones visible beneath the skin and the veins. Her toes were long and thin but fleshy at the tips. Just to look at her put Maigraith on edge, as though something about her, about them, was not quite right.

  Finally their gaze became unendurable, and she looked down. The woman spoke. “Your name is Maigraith?” Her voice grated, like Japhit’s voice, but her face was harder still.

  She nodded.

  “Why have you come here?”

  Maigraith did not answer; the question was repeated. Again she said nothing. The three Whelm moved as one along their benches, their collective will enveloping her, cutting off all her senses, stifling her. Her heart was thudding wildly. Her mouth was dry.

  “Water, please,” Maigraith said hoarsely.

  “When you have answered our questions you may drink,” said the woman.

  “Who was your accomplice?” asked Japhit. “What is her destination?”

  Maigraith did not respond. She felt that if she once began to speak to them she would not be able to stop.

  “How did you get into Fiz Gorgo?” asked another. No answer.

  “Who sent you?” It was the woman again. “Why does your master want the Glass?” “Glass?” Maigraith asked.

  “The Mirror of Aachan,” cried the woman. “Why does your master want it?”

  Maigraith sat mute while their questions beat against her. Already she feared them more than Yggur. She sensed a little humanity in him, but here there was none.

  “Who are you? What is your business with me?” Maigraith gasped. She felt she was choking.

  “We are Whelm. I am Vartila. Yggur is our master. We do his will in all things.”

  The stifling blanket of their will, which had given slightly, returned stronger than before, and with it came a feeling that they were probing her mind, that their questions were only part of the interrogation. An icy pulse came and went in her temples.

  The questioning continued for a long time, and though she did not yield, to Maigraith it seemed that the Whelm were growing, while she was shrinking into the hard floor. They were tireless. She was so thirsty that she could barely speak. She could scarcely think, for the menace of the Whelm filled her whole mind: images of torment, and their delight in it. No, not delight, satisfaction! That was what struck her so oddly. As though they knew not right or wrong, only how best to do their master’s will. As though they took no pleasure in torment, save where it advanced their master’s purpose. Their faces might have been cut from agate, so little did they show.

  As the hours passed the probing pressure intensified until her whole head was a network of pain, leaving no room for thought. And yet, no one had so much as touched her.

  Sometime after noon of the second day since her capture, another Whelm came into the room. For a moment they all drew away. She did not hear the message but it was evident that the news was bad, for once the messenger had gone she heard them speaking among themselves.

  “It is a dangerously weak master that we have,” said Japhit, looking gaunter and older than before.

  “Yes, but what can we do? Without a master we are nothing,” replied another.

  “We must be strong,” said Vartila. “We can delay no longer with this one,” and they came back to her and resumed their positions on the benches.

  Japhit reached across and put the flat of his hand on her throat. He drew his fingers slowly downwards. The touch left trails of fire and ice that spread in all directions and faded but slowly. The pressure, the probing, swelled again, and now there began inside her an awful, diseased chuckling. The Whelm did not so much as glance at each other. Her skin shivered, as though some parasite was feeding on her, its pulpy body bloating within her. She retched, so powerful was the sense of loathsomeness that came upon her, but her stomach was empty.

  In a submerged corner of herself smoldered an anger at the abuse; it began to grow, slowly in the beginning, then with a rush, swelling until she could no longer contain it.

  Without warning—without even thought—it burst forth: Maigraith thrust her hand at Japhit, her fingers spreading like the petals of a flower, and abandoning the warnings and checks that had been part of her long training, she directed the full force of her pain-sharpened mind at him.

  The Whelm stopped in the middle of a word, went still as a statue, then red blotches sprang out all over his face and he toppled backwards onto the floor. His face was wracked by his agony, and his arms wrapped and unwrapped themselves around his body, over and over again.

  Too much strength, too late, thought Maigraith. Another of my failings.

  The other two did not move. The man was pale, his knuckles white where he gripped the bench. Vartila had risen in a half-crouch, smiling a phantom smile. Maigraith found it profoundly disturbing.

  “Jark-un must know of this,” said Vartila to the man. “Ask him to come here, if he will.”

  “He is not back yet.”

  “Then call him as soon as he returns. This one bothers me—she is too strong. We must know who sent her. It may be easier to break the other.”

  Just then the door slammed. Yggur stood there, dominating the room, impossibly tall. He wore a heavy cloak, a tall gray hat, to the edge of which still clung a few drops of moisture, and high boots thick with black mud.

  “I will… take her now,” he said softly, in his halting way. “Bring her to my workroom.”

  “But master…” Vartila began, then stopped and turned away.

  Maigraith stumbled into the room, exhausted from the long climb, the aftersickness full on her again. Yggur spoke to her but she could barely hear him, could not even see him until he came close. She huddled on the floor, swaying, looking up at the towering blur, aware only of her thirst and the terrible pain in her head.

  “Water,” she croaked. “Please give me some water.”

  Yggur squatted painfully, examining her face. He flushed and she flinched away, afraid that he was going to strike her. He heaved himself up with a groan and limped over to the doorway, pulling the cord that hung there.

  A servant appeared almost immediately. Yggur said something to him that Maigraith did not hear and pulled the cord again. A second servant appeared as quickly as the first and the two bore her away to a set of chambers nearby. There they bathed her in glorious hot water, took her filthy clothes and brought clean ones.

  Afterwards, they led her back to the main room and served her food and drink at a small table with black carved legs, beside a fire. The food was the simplest of fare: pickled fish, steamed vegetables and coarse bread, with lasee, the weak yellow brewed drink that was served with every meal in Orist. Maigraith was so thirsty that she drank two bowls. The two servants stood by the door as she ate, watching her all the while. When she was finished they took her back to Yggur’s chambers and sat her down on a couch drawn up to one side of a freshly lit fire, another bowl at her elbow. Yggur was not there. Beside the fire she felt clean and warm for the first time since they had entered the swamps of Orist, and she was more afraid than ever. The lasee, weak though it was, had made her drowsy, but she sat bolt upright on the couch.

  Shortly Yggur returned, now wearing a long woolen shirt and thick trousers over gray boots. The servants withdrew. He pulled up a chair on the other side of the fire. The fury was gone now, or hidden, and Yggur’s long, strong face was calm, almost amiable. Maigraith did not know how to deal with this. For all her strength, she had little skill in reading people or understanding them, and could not see how to unravel this new complexity.

  “You are a little better now?”

  “Thank you,�
�� she responded, unsettled by the appearance of kindness.

  “The Whelm are overzealous. I was occupied with the hunt.”

  Maigraith could scarcely believe what she was hearing. He was apologizing to her?

  “What have you done with Karan?” she asked.

  Yggur drew his chair closer to hers, looking into her eyes. He seemed to be looking for something, and once again seemed puzzled by what he saw there. She shivered and drew back.

  Yggur spoke quickly now, his impediment barely evident. “I have no more time. Who is Karan, and where has she taken the Mirror?”

  Could Karan have escaped? It was barely credible. Maigraith averted her gaze. The cunning of Yggur was legendary, but rumor had never made him considerate or kind. He was capable of any sort of trickery, and her best defense was to say nothing at all.

  “I will tell you nothing,” she said.

  He asked his questions again and again, patiently, even tried his will on her, as he had done before, but not a word would she say. Once only did a rage take him, and he raised his fist and dashed her cup off its little table. Yellow liquid ran down the wall. “Speak,” he shouted, raising his fist again, but yet her eyes defied him. And somehow she knew that the rage was a calculated rage, an assumed rage, even a good-humored one, so different from the blind fury of before. What had changed him so?

  Finally Maigraith was too weary even to sit up. Yggur called the servants, who carried her back to a small room with a bed. They took off her clothes while she stood silently, her eyes already closed, then Maigraith crept between the cold sheets.

  The door opened without a sound and Yggur came in, carrying a hooded lantern. She was right to mistrust him. It was rage that impelled him down the corridor to Maigraith’s room, though he did not show it. Fury at the loss of the Mirror, so central to his long-term plans, and the thought that in her utter weariness he might find a way to break her. He had long used the Mirror to spy out his enemies’ defenses. But, hidden within it, Yggur was sure, was a much more crucial secret, a way to overcome the limitations of distance that bound the overlords of Santhenar within their petty kingdoms. A way to right the great wrong that had been done to him. Yggur was motivated not only by lust for revenge, a lesser and a greater, but also by a vision—to unite all Meldorin, even all Santhenar, in the knowledge that he was fittest to do so. The lesser revenge was the first stepping stone. Uniting Santhenar would permit the greater revenge—for that he might need all that the world could provide.